Sunday, January 24, 2016

I finally resolved my technical issue with my HD webcam, and have begun filming youtube videos again! Yay! I love editing videos and it gives me something creative too do when I don't have enough energy for anything else (such as right now, since I've managed to come down with a bad cold). I have about 2 weeks worth of videos scheduled so far, and I'm hoping to find time to film some more. The first one is already up:

I'm usually a little slow re-posting my videos to the blog, so if you want to watch them right away please subscribe to my channel :)

I don't have any outfit shots today, due to the cold I mentioned earlier. However I had my first experiment with nail art a week ago. I really need a smaller brush, as my lettering came out much too large, but overall I thought it was not bad for a first attempt.

I'm allergic to a lot of chemicals, but I've finally found a nail polish I can use. Piggy Paint makes a really great water-based nail polish. That means they have no toxic chemical smell, are safe to use, plus look really cute.

And yes, one glows in the dark. It's best under blacklight, which was perfect as I went glow-in-the-dark mini putting with a friend last week.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

For my first outfit post of the new year, I'm actually sort of repeating the last outfit of last year. I love it when other bloggers repeat outfits, so I'm going to do so unabashedly here! I wore the same dress, but changed up the accessories for a different look. This dress is my favourite at the moment. Ok technically it's not a dress, but rather a vintage nightgown. However, it works very well as a dress when it's styled!

(Tip: vintage slips/nightgowns are often much cheaper than vintage dresses. They can be a great purchase when you're trying to pinch pennies but still want to wear real vintage).

Instead of the girly-ballet look I did last time, I went for a more grown up look with my new What Katie Did corset, pearls, and some Victorian-style boots. My friends from highschool and I all met up to go glow-in-the-dark mini putting followed by fancy icecream/coffee. The embroidery on the neckline of the nightgown glowed very brightly under the black-lights, which was very fun!

I've been wearing my corset a lot on weekends and around the house. It really helps my neck/back pain! It's a little too sexy for tutoring in, but great for a weekend out with friends. I quite like the look of the corset and usually wear it over-top rather than underneath my outfit. I've always been partial to Victorian style and nothing screams Victorian quite like a corset (even if they did usually wear theirs underneath)!

This was a very quick photoshoot, as it was absolutely freezing outside!

I've been leisurely enjoying my Christmas gifts over the last couple weeks. I used a giftcard to purchase Dita Von Teese's new beauty book. It's fantastic! I normally only buy used books, but this book caught my eye while shopping with a friend. It was a bit of a splurge, but well worth it! It's not only beautiful, but also informative and very interesting.

I also bought myself a little Christmas gift: a compressed heather brooch. Yes, the "gemstone" is actually bits of dyed Scottish heather stems that have been compressed and polished. It's really stunning and was surprisingly inexpensive. I wore it a lot over the holiday season.

I've also managed to finish a few knitting projects now that the holiday rush is over. The first one is a shawl/scarf from this beautiful yarn I picked up from a local yarn shop. I made up the pattern as I went along, as I couldn't find anything quite right on Ravelry. Instructions can be found on my Ravelry page for the project.

I also finished another pair of socks. I hate knitting with dpns and find the magic loop method a little awkward, so I always knit my socks flat using this free pattern. Sewing them together at the end is a bit of a pain, but they work up quite quickly and I can knit both at the same time.

I'm hoping to continue this trend of productivity and finish some sewing projects in the upcoming weeks. My sewing room is a mess with half-finished projects at the moment, so it would be nice to get at least a couple done. I'm also hoping to get my hd webcam fixed soon so I can make more youtube videos. There are more videos coming, it just might take a while as I sort out the technically difficulties.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Happy 2016 everyone! I figured I would start the year off right with some pretty dress illustrations I found in an old magazine. It's actually one large picture, but I've cropped it into 3 smaller pictures so I could put them in a frame in my sewing room. It felt right to post some new inspiration images for the new year. Even though my model has moved away, I'm still hoping to add a bunch of new garments to the shop by the end of the month. Not sure how I'm going to photograph them yet, but I'm sure I will figure something out! Sewing more garments is not quite a "new years resolution", but it is certainly a major goal of mine for this year. I even started the year by sewing a dress after the new years countdown!